Sam and Nia are YouTubevloggers based out of Terrell, Texas[1] who vlog about their daily life as a Christian family. They have over 100 videos that exceed one million views, 13 videos with over 10 million views, and 6 that have over 20 million views.[2] They first rose to prominence when they made a video of themselves lip-syncing to the song "Love Is An Open Door" from Frozen titled "Good Looking Parents Sing Disney's Frozen (Love Is an Open Door)".[3] The video was an instant success and went viral in march of 2014, it currently has over 23 million views.[4][5]

In August 2015 Sam and Nia had another viral video of Sam surprising Nia with her own pregnancy.[6] A few days later, they announced that their pregnancy ended in a miscarriage causing a lot of skepticism of the pregnancy in the first place.[7] A week after the miscarriage announcement, it was revealed that Sam Rader used to have an account on the adult affair website Ashley Madison, which caused a huge backlash in the media.[8] They currently have over two million subscribers.[9]

Sam and Nia met while attending Wills Point High School in Wills Point, Texas. They also simultaneously attended Trinity Valley Community College, where they both received associate degrees. Sam transferred to The University of Texas at Arlington where he received his BS degree in nursing.[10] They dated for about 5 years until they married in Wills Point on September 12, 2009.[11] Dallas Wedding Photographer, Matthew T Rader, captured their engagement and wedding photos.[12][13][14] Sam worked as an ER nurse and Nia as a manager of a Maurices store at the Tanger Factory Outlet Center in Terrell Texas for the first 4 years of their marriage.[15] On July 18 of 2010, their daughter Symphony Pearl Rader was born. Then on September 18 in 2013, their son Abram was born. Juliet, their youngest child, was born on June 1, 2016.[16]

On March 10, 2014 Sam uploaded a video titled "Good Looking Parents Sing Disney's Frozen (Love Is an Open Door)".[17] The video was picked up by news stations and websites all over the world and quickly became a viral video.[18] The video has amassed over 22 million views. The success of the video caused the amount of subscribers to their YouTube channel to increase greatly. Within one month they had over 35,000 subscribers.[19] Their sudden burst into Internet fame gained them the attention of Disney who had them do a cameo appearance in a music video based on another song from the movie Frozen.[20]

On June 2015 Sam uploaded a video of him surprising his wife with her own pregnancy by dipping a pregnancy test into a toilet bowl with her urine in it on a morning she didn't flush it. The video was called, "HUSBAND SHOCKS WIFE WITH PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT!"[21] and it was immediately picked up by the media and went viral.[22] Within two days it had over 5 million views, it currently has a total of 18 million views. The video caused a fair amount of controversy, including Vanity Fair and Mic questioning whether a man had the right to know a woman was pregnant before she knew herself.[23][24] To dispute the claims made by Sam and Nia in their video, Buzzfeed interviewed a doctor and published an article casting doubt on the ability to get a positive pregnancy test result from toilet bowl water.[25] Many people posted videos on YouTube defending and proving Sam and Nia's authenticity by sampling their own urine from toilet bowl water using a variety of brands and types of over-the-counter pregnancy tests while clearly pregnant. In all of the videos the tests results were true positives.[26][27][28][29][30][31]

Three days later, while the video was still going viral, in another emotional video (now removed), Sam and Nia announced that their pregnancy suddenly ended in a miscarriage.[32][33] This announcement received mixed reactions. Articles and videos were made in support of them and others were made doubting the authenticity of their claims. Sam admitted that Nia had not gone to a doctor to be looked at, he said it was unnecessary because he was a registered nurse and already knew how to handle the situation.[34] This created even more doubt. Sam and Nia have insisted that they were completely honest in their pregnancy and miscarriage videos.[35] Sam and Nia have also insisted that they do not regret announcing the pregnancy so early. They said they feel the goal of their channel is to be authentic and allow their viewers to experience life as they experience it and allow their faith in God be demonstrated in everyday and in tragic life moments.[36]

Three days after the miscarriage was announced, it was revealed that Sam had an account on the affair website Ashley Madison three years prior.[37] Most of the major news websites and magazine quickly picked up this story and ran it, including The Daily Mail, Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, Perez Hilton, and many others.[38][39][40][41] Within two days Sam, with Nia by his side, released a video (now removed) acknowledging and apologizing for having the account and said God and Nia has forgiven him.[42] This video caused even more controversy and backlash and was seen as a cop out.[43] Despite all of the controversy, their subscriber count grew greatly.[44]

The Ashley Madison scandal broke in the news while Sam and Nia were attending Vlogger Fair in Seattle. While there Sam encountered another family vlogger he accused of liking a tweet critical of him.[45] He apparently started yelling and made verbal threats towards the other vlogger.[46] He was quickly kicked out of Vlogger Fair. This event made the news putting Sam in more negative light.[47] Their fan base began to drop and Sam was accused of being a hypocrite for claiming to be Christian while doing such so-called un-Christian like things off camera.[48]

After the preceding controversies, Sam and Nia announced that they were going to take a hiatus from vlogging for an indefinite amount of time. They said they needed time to recover from their controversies and spend time on focusing on and healing their marriage and family.[49]

A petition on Change.org was created to convince Sam and Nia to return to vlogging. 33 days later, Sam and Nia resumed vlogging, initially not daily as they had before.[50] They published vlogs several times a week until they resumed their daily vlogging about a month later. Sam and Nia's handling of their controversy has become a formula for other religious vloggers that have had controversies; make a video acknowledging and apologizing for what happened, take a hiatus, and gradually return to vlogging.[51]

On October 23, 2015 Sam and Nia uploaded a video announcing that they were pregnant once again. They made the announcement by surprising both their mothers by placing a literal bun in the oven.[52] This video also went viral but not to the same extent as the previous pregnancy announcement video.[53] This pregnancy led to the birth of their daughter Juliet.[54] They continue to daily post vlogs about their life and the life of their children on YouTube.[55]